ANALYSIS
On the Roll - but Until
When?
After junking the
second impeachment complaint by sheer number of votes of the majority
coalition, the Macapagal Arroyo administration is now ramming through its
charter change initiative. Striking while the iron is hot, the
administration is throwing all caution into the air to steam-roll its
agenda.
BY BENJIE OLIVEROS
Bulatlat
The House of Representatives in plenary
session |
The Macapagal-Arroyo
administration and its allies in the House of Representatives seem to
believe in only one principle: strength in numbers. They junked the
second impeachment complaint dubbed as the “people’s complaint” not
because it is lacking in substance, for they refused to even take a look
at the seven boxes of evidences, but because they have the numbers. Rep.
Edcel Lagman was right when he said that the second impeachment complaint
was dead on arrival. Not because it is a mere rehash of the charges
brought before the House last year but because as Rep. Prospero Nograles
pointed out, impeachment is really a numbers game. In the first place, the
genuine impeachment complaint was not even considered last year as the
House voted to take up only the Lozano complaint, which it also readily
dispensed with.
|
Emboldened by this
victory of sorts, it is now ramming through its charter change initiative
in much the same way. After seeing that the petition of Sigaw ng
Malacanang, euphemistically called Sigaw ng Bayan, would encounter rough
sailing, as it still has to pass through the approval of the Supreme
Court, the Macapagal Arroyo administration is now banking on its most
reliable henchmen, the representatives of the House.
Responding to the
call of the times (i.e. the need to start building up their campaign
kitty), the majority coalition in the Committee on Constitutional
Amendments easily, without benefit of discussion, passed a resolution to
transform Congress into a constituent assembly for the purpose of amending
the 1987 Constitution. The House still needs to approve the resolution in
a plenary session. But unless one wants to bore oneself to death
listening to official arguments repeated over and over again, there is no
need to monitor the plenary session to know how the voting would go.
Desperate measure
The political will
and decisiveness the Macapagal Arroyo administration is exhibiting does
not emanate from a vision of progress. It is a desperate measure for
survival. The Macapagal-Arroyo administration is not trying to move on,
it is trying dig in.
By rejecting the
impeachment complaint, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration wishes that the
crisis of legitimacy hounding it would simply go away. By pushing for
charter change, the government hopes to bury the crisis along with
provisions of the 1987 Constitution which protect the national patrimony,
safeguard against the return of a dictatorship, and promote human rights
With its charter
change initiative, the administration hopes to hit two birds with one
stone - the crisis of legitimacy and obstacles to its neo-liberal agenda.
Already it is trying
to condition the minds of the Filipino people. The television commercial
pitching for charter change tries to convey the message that the political
crisis will go away with the shift from a presidential to a
parliamentary-unicameral form of government. It even lumps together and
portrays the people power uprisings that toppled the Marcos dictatorship
and the Estrada administration, and the Oakwood mutiny as symptoms of the
problem of the current system of government.
The political crisis
enveloping the country cannot simply be attributed to the presidential
form of government. But it can be attributed to the one claiming to have
the mandate as president.
The people power
uprising that toppled the Marcos dictatorship was not the problem, it was
the solution. It was in fact a triumph of democracy. The people power
uprising that removed the Estrada administration was not an indictment of
the system, it was an indictment of corruption.
In a worse state
Unfortunately, now we
have both - a dictatorship and corruption that is even worse than before,
thus the Oakwood mutiny. And it is not because we have too much of people
power, it is because we still have a lack of it.
If successful, the
impact of Macapagal-Arroyo’s charter change is much like hitting the
Filipino people with lightning more than twice.
With the proposed
amendments to the constitution, it would be easier for Macapagal Arroyo to
openly declare Martial Law or to continue constricting civil liberties to
perpetuate itself in power.
Under 14 years of
Martial Law, there were 729 victims of enforced disappearances and 1,500
extra-judicial executions. In the less than six years of the Macapagal
Arroyo administration there are already 181 victims of enforced
disappearances and 752 extra-judicial executions. Would we allow the
Macapagal Arroyo administration to have more powers to continue committing
these abhorrent crimes with impunity?
Under the current
dispensation, the Macapagal Arroyo administration is already being rocked
by corruption scandals left and right. With more dictatorial powers, it
would be given a freer hand to dip its hands into the nation’s coffers.
Second, there would
be an intensification of the destructive policies of liberalization,
deregulation, and privatization.
The Filipino people
are already reeling from run-away prices and rates of basic commodities
and services, such as water and electricity all because of the
deregulation of the oil industry and the privatization of utilities. The
promise of lower rates and more efficient services with privatization has
resulted in the opposite. And the proposed amendments to the constitution
would result in more privatization.
Domestic agriculture
and local businesses are suffering because of liberalization. Because of
liberalization, the country was transformed from an exporter to a net
importer of rice. Small landowners and peasants are sinking deeper into
debt.
According to data
from the independent research and think tank IBON Foundation, the number
of manufacturing establishments that have closed down or reduced their
workforce due to the impact of import liberalization increased by 50
percent over the last year. Every day an average of eight establishments
resort to closure or retrenchment because of the liberalized environment.
And the Macapagal Arroyo administration wants to further liberalize trade
with charter change.
Oil spills, mine
tailing leakages, and other environmentally-destructive “accidents” would
occur more often as the country is further opened up to big foreign
corporations for exploitation of our natural resources. With the proposed
amendments to the constitution, all restrictions to foreign corporations
including ownership of land would be removed.
Third, the Macapagal
Arroyo administration intends to remove all prohibitions against the
reestablishment of foreign military bases, entry of nuclear weapons, and
the conduct of combat operations by foreign troops in the country.
The country is
already in a worse state than before. It will worsen further if we would
allow the Macapagal Arroyo administration to steam-roll its agenda to the
detriment of the people’s rights and welfare. That is, unless we put the
Macapagal Arroyo administration to task for its crimes against the
Filipino people and make the iron too hot for it to handle. After
all, as surveys show, outside the halls of Congress they do not have the
numbers. The majority still wants Macapagal Arroyo out. Bulatlat
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